Author:Gao Yanhui (Associate Professor, Hebei Academy of Fine Arts)
Zhuangzi once used "undressed like a man" to describe the spiritual temperament of a painter. A monarch summoned painters to paint, and most of the painters solemnly polished their brushes and ink, for fear of neglecting the monarch. Only one painter, after receiving the task of painting, returned to his residence without hurry, took off his shirt and sat cross-legged, as if the monarch had asked for painting as if it had never happened. Surprisingly, the monarch thought that this "undressed" person was the real painter.
In this story, Zhuangzi uses the tone of a monarch to express the inner temperament of Chinese painting and even Chinese art. In Zhuangzi's view, artistic creation, including painting, should be the expression of spiritual power, and the mission of painters and artists is not to paint according to the propositions of others, but to make their understanding of life and nature jump on the paper through the form of pen and ink. The interpretation of life and nature in Chinese painting often means that painters need to exert their subjective consciousness. Chinese painting between "shape-likeness" and "god-likeness" tends to favor the latter.
The god of "god-likeness" is the open-mindedness of the subjective spirit and the expression of the subjective ideas of the painter, which makes freehand an important feature of Chinese art and Chinese culture. Freehand is about the understanding of the Tao after transcending phenomena. As far as the philosophy of life is concerned, freehand means the transcendence of the finiteness of the individual in life, while as far as the art of painting is concerned, freehand requires the realization of the artistic realm of returning to the basics through the process of enlightenment.
Faced with philosophical issues such as life, Chinese culture likes to use the term "enlightenment" to interpret it. The "Tao" is the transcendence of the concrete form of existence of all things, while the "enlightenment" is different from mechanical understanding and rigid reproduction, it is the understanding and realization of natural things from the depths of the soul. The spirit of "Enlightenment" is also expressed in the creation of Zhuangzi's philosophy and Chinese painting art. The spiritual realm of the painter is the expression of his inner connotation and personality charm, and the painter's works are based on the inspiration gathering.
Whether it is Zhang Yanyuan's theory that nature is wonderful in painting, or Zheng Banqiao's painting on the creation as a teacher, they both use the natural way of Zhuangzi's philosophy as the source of inspiration for artistic creation and the basic standard of art criticism. For Zhuangzi, the culmination of the realm of life seems to be the materialized realm of Zhuang Zhou's dream butterfly. This is a philosophical proposition full of aesthetic implications, because this realm means the unity of subject and object, subject and object. For Chinese painting, no matter what changes in the subject matter and creative techniques of painting, there is an inherent pursuit of change. This pursuit is similar to Zhuangzi's pursuit of the realm of freedom, and the cleverness and mystery of the unique spiritual exchange with heaven and earth are immersed in every masterpiece of Chinese painting. The so-called "righteousness of heaven and earth, the debate of the six qi" is also the cleverness of Chinese freehand painting. It always reminds the painter to go beyond the restrictions and constraints of objective conditions, to let the heart have the ease of undressing, and let the pen depict the elegant grandeur of the spiritual realm.
Zhuangzi said, "The Only Way is to gather the void, the void, and the heart." "Xinzhai is the realm that the spirit of life should have, and it is also the most basic temperament requirement of freehand painting." For freehand painting, the proposition of Xinzhai gave rise to a series of painting theories in later generations, and "Cheng Huai Wei Xiang" is the most classic description.
The so-called "Chenghuai Taste Elephant" is a story by the Liu Song painter Zong Bing, which roughly means that Zong Bing's love for landscapes has become almost fanatical, and he wades west to Jing, Wu, Nan Dengheng, and Yue, and later had to retreat to Jiangling because of physical discomfort. At this time, Zong Bing sighed: "Old and sick, the famous mountains are afraid to see everywhere, but when Cheng Huaiguan Dao, lie down and swim." This is an extreme emphasis on aesthetic experience, but also its infinite pursuit of the realm of life freedom. Zong Bing's "Chang Shen Theory" in the field of art should also originate here, "Bede" and "Application" are all shackles, the soul should be integrated with nature, and the freehand works should start from transcending figuration, realize the perfect unity of figuration and abstraction, and then point directly to the artistic conception itself.
For Zhuangzi, freehand is the aesthetic grasp of the dynamics of the whole world, which is to connect individual life with the entire universe, which is what Zhuangzi called "Tao Tong as one". The spirit of Chinese freehand painting also pursues this kind of air of being one, which requires the painter to be "intended to be the first to write", and has already made up his mind before the brush is painted, and the whole world is clearly understood, so that every time the ink is dropped, it can reach the true meaning of life and reach the depth of the artistic conception behind the figurative world.
Zhuangzi once sighed: Although the fish is a fishing tool, if you get the fish, you can forget the fish; Although the hoof is a tool for catching rabbits, you can forget the hooves when you get the rabbit; Similarly, although language is a tool for expressing ideas, it is possible to forget language by realizing that thought itself. For freehand painting, as long as it can achieve the transmission of the image, the specific method can vary from person to person, and it should be very personal, and the essence of the freehand spirit lies in the vividness of the air outside the shape.
Zhang Yanyuan's "seeking paintings outside the shape" is the play of this spirit, and Su Shi joked with the joke of "on painting to resemble shapes, see neighbors with children", which showed the breakthrough of Chinese art. Qi Baishi continues this line of thinking, defining the wonders of Chinese painting as "between the similar and the unlikely.". In this way, Chinese freehand painters always pursue the vivid realm of qi rhyme, in such a context, pen and ink Danqing is the carrier of qi rhyme flow, and qi yun artistic conception becomes the profound connotation of painting. The creators of Chinese freehand painting in the past and the present, either flying white with dry brushes, or ink stains with wet pens, or with ink lines full, or with white color, have long exceeded the restrictions of the specific form of the objects depicted in painting, and have taken a purer aesthetic experience as the ultimate pursuit of artistic creation. This may be the most intrinsic driving force for the inheritance of freehand art for thousands of years, and it is also the embodiment of the unique charm of Chinese freehand art.
In painting, the concept corresponding to the figurative should be abstract, while the imagery in the freehand corresponds to the collection of both figurative and abstract. This means that freehand is different from figurative depiction and abstract deconstruction, but transcends the distinction between figuration and abstraction, and ultimately achieves the ultimate pursuit of art for the spiritual world. Zhuangzi regarded the world as a process of movement of life, and although there is a movement of creation and destruction in the world, each stage of its operation process has its own independent and intrinsic meaning. Such meaning is not given by external objects, but constantly manifests its own wordless beauty. The creation of Chinese freehand painting is also a similar process, each freehand work has its own specific and vivid creative background, there is the author's high personality and difficult to copy the creative mentality, but also has the convergence of many accidental factors, but it is these natural rather than man-made factors that come together, which makes freehand painting have a unique charm. We often regard the unity of man and heaven and earth as the high realm of art, and the true depth and longevity cannot be copied. That is to say, the creation of Chinese freehand painting is actually the natural process of life, which does not reject the occurrence of chance, nor does it set too many restrictions on itself for the emergence of necessity. In this way, the process of life and the process of creation are merged into one, and the pursuit of Zhuangzi's spirit is also the same as the creation law of freehand painting.
Compared with the love of "painting" in the process of Western painting creation, Chinese freehand painting created through brushes has more "writing" meaning. "Writing" means that painting and calligraphy, and even the whole of Chinese art, have an intrinsically connected personality, and it also means that Chinese painting has more improvisational and accidental components. Taking painting bamboo as an example, Zhao Mengfu once said: "Stone is like flying white wood, and writing bamboo should also be eight ways." Wang Shizhen once said: "The method of painting bamboo is dry like a seal, branches like grass, leaves like truth, and knots like affiliation." "These are all talking about the intrinsic commonality of Chinese calligraphy and painting. From the perspective of the development process of Chinese art, the characteristics of writing books into paintings are actually concentrated portrayals of the development of freehand art. Whether it is the grandeur of Xu Wei or the cold and lonely arrogance of the Bada Shanren, the concept of the homology of calligraphy and painting has become more and more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, so that the pursuit of freehand painting with vivid meaning can achieve harmony and unity between the pen and the realm.
In short, the "writing" of freehand painting emphasizes the excitement of the creative process more than the completion of the creative purpose. Chinese culture also often says that words are like their people, and "writing" means a dual experience of painting creation and life experience, which can more deeply point to the authenticity of life that Zhuangzi cherished. In this sense, the meaning of freehand is nature in Taoist philosophy, that is, the "undressing like a robe" in the spirit of Zhuangzi.
"Undressing" is a yearning for the state of freedom of life, and it is also a metaphor for the artistic realm from scratch and then from nothing to nothing. For art, freehand is the artist's understanding of the state of the world, and it is also the artist's own depiction of self-consciousness in the world. From the perspective of the history of Chinese painting, although Wang Wei of the Tang Dynasty may be one of the pioneers of Chinese freehand painting, as early as the Tang Dynasty, the temperament of freehand painting has been revealed in the creation of fine art and even art. From the early petroglyphs to the popularity of the romantic temperament of the Wei and Jin dynasties, all of them express the freehand style in their creations.
"Whoever seeks the elders of the wood will strengthen its roots; Whoever wants to flow far will dredge its source. "For Chinese art, whether it is realistic or heart-writing, it is actually an expression of the creator's state of mind, and in this kind of expression, it has a universal meaning, and at the same time it is very individual, in order to achieve the state of traditional Chinese art." Only in this way can we achieve true cultural self-confidence in the field of artistic creation.
Guangming Daily ( 2022-08-12 edition 16)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily